MSimon wrote:Joe does not allow me to do deletions. And I like to run things as much as possible so he is not bothered. So asking for deletions of off topic will not do any good.

I kind of like the digressions. Some folks like strict on topic. Ya can't please everyone. And who I aim to please is Joe.

Perhaps just counting on people to follow thread rules and proper etiquette could be enough. Change the sticky in the news forum to say something along the lines of "If a topic is labeled ON TOPIC ONLY: users should avoid adding posts that drift the conversation off-topic." We seem to be a reasonable bunch of guys normally. And rarely does the vituperation start with the first few posts. An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.

What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

MSimon wrote:Joe does not allow me to do deletions. And I like to run things as much as possible so he is not bothered. So asking for deletions of off topic will not do any good.

I kind of like the digressions. Some folks like strict on topic. Ya can't please everyone. And who I aim to please is Joe.

Perhaps just counting on people to follow thread rules and proper etiquette could be enough. Change the sticky in the news forum to say something along the lines of "If a topic is labeled ON TOPIC ONLY: users should avoid adding posts that drift the conversation off-topic." We seem to be a reasonable bunch of guys normally. And rarely does the vituperation start with the first few posts. An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.

No one reads the stickys. And after the first 15 posts te reminder is on another page.

I agree with this:

An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.

Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon wrote:Joe does not allow me to do deletions. And I like to run things as much as possible so he is not bothered. So asking for deletions of off topic will not do any good.

I kind of like the digressions. Some folks like strict on topic. Ya can't please everyone. And who I aim to please is Joe.

Perhaps just counting on people to follow thread rules and proper etiquette could be enough. Change the sticky in the news forum to say something along the lines of "If a topic is labeled ON TOPIC ONLY: users should avoid adding posts that drift the conversation off-topic." We seem to be a reasonable bunch of guys normally. And rarely does the vituperation start with the first few posts. An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.

No one reads the stickys. And after the first 15 posts te reminder is on another page.

I agree with this:

An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.

OK, how about the convention of titleing the threads in the format "ON TOPIC ONLY:ITER Delays"

What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

OK, how about the convention of titleing the threads in the format "ON TOPIC ONLY:ITER Delays"

Not my favourite idea. The index page would end up quite ugly. You can try it though. The popularity will be judged by those who post the articles. I find a little topic drift is useful, otherwise conversation can lose its dynamic. What is offtopic differs between people. The real problem is when drift occurs on top of drift, on top of drift. I prefer a friendly reminder from the post author or whoever feels irritated by the drift.

The ideal solution would be an offtopic-vote button, such that the poster of a comment can be nudged to voluntarily move the comment to new thread - but that would require significant mods to the software.

On topic... I think that a policy of no-deletions makes the task of moderation easier. It can burn time and concience weighing up whether something is legitimately off-topic, and is more likely to burn someone's feelings and cascade into a flame war. Leave the deletions to something unsual, like a level of vulgarity that will get a user banned.

How about moving off topic "sub- thread" posts to their own, new threads?
So if a thread drifts into a completely different topic (I have seen it happen and I dont mind it and it may have even been my fault at times), then one could just as well move these posts into their own thread. Then the mod should post a link to the new thread in the old thread. So people know where the off topic discussion now is.
I have seen this before on other boards. I think it would be a good compromise also, because people dont feel offended because "their posts " have been deleted and the main thread still stays somewhat on topic.

It wouldn't be comprehensive enough. Posts containing both on topic and off topic conversation would have to be tailored by hand, etc. The simplest solution would probably be color coding the posts. Or just their header where the post time stamp and subject are.
On topic content- no change, off topic some color, both on and off topic some other color. Users would be expected to color their posts themselves, reducing the sorting work per person to its minimum.

But that'd require forum software changes. Doesn't seem feasible. Especially not if only a few users want this and it's not really warranted anyway.

How, the posts in question are moved and the moderator posts a link to the new thread with the kind request for people to continue their off topic talks there. I dont see how this can be incomprehensive... Also, as I mentioned, this is the way it is done in many other forums that I am reading and posting in.

How, the posts in question are moved and the moderator posts a link to the new thread with the kind request for people to continue their off topic talks there. I dont see how this can be incomprehensive... Also, as I mentioned, this is the way it is done in many other forums that I am reading and posting in.

Anyway, the ultimate decision is with Msimon and Joe anyway.

Because too often the off topic and on topic stuff is related. Conversation would suffer because fragments would be missing. If you've got something like color coding, you can skim thru posts like you skim news feeds, instantly picking out what posts you're looking for, while keeping thread integrity intact. I think that's more comprehensive than fragmenting conversations because while it's best to split conversations within a thread that are truly apart, it's not at all adapted to interwoven topics.
It would be a different form of the old nested thread format. It would require less work from mods, and only require self discipline from users where instead of asking them to not go off topic, that they color their post appropriately.

Of course you could then just as well have users be disciplined enough to simply agree to move tangents to separate threads.

Well, the moderators would have to react rather quickly, in order to avoid to many off topic posts already cluttering the thread.
Deletions would have the same effect on the original thread too though.
Colorcoding seems very complicated because you would still get "mixed" posts (refering to on and off topic posts) and how would you colorcode those?